


love is hate, twice cursed

by karasunotsubasa



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Pain, Partner Betrayal, Revenge, Royalty, Sad and Sweet, Seduction, but not really, but not really again, this fic is just a mix of contradictions I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-17 20:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20626988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karasunotsubasa/pseuds/karasunotsubasa
Summary: On a field of battle, Victor kills Yuuri's father. Years after, Yuuri, now a king in his own right, arrives at the Nikiforov castle to extract his revenge.If he succeeds, Victor will fall madly in love with him, drop his guard, and die by Yuuri's hand.Should he fail, Yuuri stands to lose far more than his crown – he may just lose his heart instead.





	love is hate, twice cursed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owlishann](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlishann/gifts).

> I swear I meant to write something else entirely but then I rewatched the tv show 'revenge' and... this happened. enemies to lovers was a perfect trope, but again, I imagined this so much differently... and then this happened. oh gosh, I can't even tell you WHAT happened because I don't know myself rdycivugbhn IT JUST DID
> 
> and I hope you enjoy this pain monster as much as I enjoyed writing it ;3c

The first time Yuuri hears his name it's entrapped within the desperate gasps between his sister's sobs as she clutches at Yuuri's arms with bruising strength that has done nothing to help her save their father. He's ten and Mari is only six years older, still a child herself. But, unlike Yuuri, who could not leave their mother's side for longer than a day without crying for her in his sleep, their father kept Mari at his side like a royal retainer. He groomed her to take his place once he was gone, one day, somewhere off in the far, far future. 

Neither of them expected that future to come by so soon.

"He killed him!" Mari cries, holding Yuuri like he too might slip her grasp. "Nikiforov... he killed him! Yuuri, he's dead. Our father– He's–" 

Her tears stream hot into Yuuri's collar, salt burning his pores, stripping his skin until it feels like only bare flesh covers him. Bare flesh, into which she puts the first seedling of hate, one that over the years Yuuri will nurture and feed, and watch it blossom into something that will consume him whole.

"I'll kill him," Mari promises on a sharp gasp, her words biting into Yuuri's ear. "I'll kill him, if it's the last thing I do. Victor Nikiforov will die at my hand and our father will be avenged. I swear so on our father's soul. May the gods help me, I will take his head!"

And Yuuri, clutching onto his sister as his own eyes begin to weep, vows to help her in any way he knows how – to avenge their father and bring justice. To kill Victor Nikiforov.

The first time Victor hears the name Katsuki is when he's a child and sneaks under the table of his father's study, where the generals talk of matters that bore little Vitya to sleep. As if in a dream, he hears the name Yuuri, and he forgets all about it when he awakes. But since then, the name Katsuki seems to follow him everywhere he goes. 

There is a war raging far beyond the castle walls and Victor grows up, knowing that one day he will fight at the very front of it.

And then he does. He is barely seventeen, still a boy more than a man, but he thinks he knows the world like the back of his hand, so his father allows it.

And Victor, magnificent and noble, and fearless with the courage of youth… he wins it for him. 

He is hailed a hero, worshipped for his brilliance and cunning, for his skill and his bravery. But when this hero, whose name travels across the lands on common folk's lips, closes his eyes, all he sees is the carnage he left in his wake. He sees the girl whose father he's slain, the princess who held her dying parent in her arms, covered in his blood, and who spat at Victor's feet even as she ordered their army – her army now – to fall back.

It's her face that haunts his dreams, too. Yet it's not her name that puts true dread into him, though. That, truly, comes after. 

There is peace for years after the Katsuki king dies and many hope that it will last. Victor remembers the princess' eyes – the hardness, the anger, the hate – and he knows that such hopes are futile. He doesn't know when, but he knows that the end of peace will come.

And then one day, it does.

And its name is Yuuri Katsuki, the brother, the son, the new king, who's come to repay the spilled Katsuki blood in Nikiforov blood of equal measure. 

The castle stands at the foot of a mountain bigger than any Yuuri has ever seen. It's protected from the north by that natural barrier, from the east it's guarded by a wide river, and from the west – a citadel that will sooner send troops than the enemy will make its approach. The only way to storm it is through the south, just where they came from. 

But today, today they are not here for that. After all, why waste the lives of good men, when there are other ways of getting inside and doing what needs to be done?

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mari asks, seated in her saddle so stiffly that Yuuri wonders for a moment how her horse has not thrown her off yet. 

He doesn't comment on it, for his own posture must be just as stiff as hers. 

"It's the only way," he answers. "You know that."

"It's the only way, because you decided it is. I was against this from the very start, if you care to remember."

Yuuri doesn't comment, and Mari doesn't say a word more as if sensing his own upheaval. Instead, she looks to the castle, judging the fortifications, the men at the ramparts, the weapons and the weaknesses. At last, she turns to Yuuri again, her face drawn into a scowl that is part anger, part worry.

"How confident are you in this plan?"

Yuuri can't lie to her. He can lie to the whole world if he must, but never to her. 

He closes his eyes and admits: "I will know only after I see him. There are so many things that are at play here, Mari. I can't possibly tell if it will work before I see him and take measure of who he is as a man. We will know then. If he is the superficial fool we've heard him to be… it will work."

She sighs as if that is the reply she expected from him. 

"Very well then. But remember that I will cut his throat in front of all these people if he as much as looks at you the wrong way," she threatens, bringing a faint smile to Yuuri's lips.

"And what way is that?"

The look she gives him forces a laugh out of him, the first one in days. It's choked and sounds more like a sob, so Yuuri quickly swallows it back. He's too late, though. 

Mari's eyes soften with pity. Yuuri winces and turns away from her, gripping the reins in his hands harder than necessary. Pity is the last thing he wants his sister to feel for him, especially on the day they finally set foot on the path towards revenge. His horse rears its head back until Yuuri allows him more room once again. 

Then, he takes a deep breath.

"Let's go."

Two dozen men flank their sides as they ride through the plains that lead to the castle. They could be shot down at any second, open as they are in plain sight, but no arrow is loosened against them. And when the first horses step onto the stones of the inner gate of the Nikiforovs' castle, Yuuri knows that their plan can work. 

He pulls his horse to a stop, lifting his head to look at the crowd gathered to greet them. Lords and ladies in clothes as foreign as their faces stand everywhere in sight. But it is there, on top of the stairs that lead into the castle proper, that he spots the man that ruined his and his sister's childhoods. That caused their mother's premature death as her heart broke at the news of her husband's violent passing. 

There, at the side of his own living parents, stands Victor Nikiforov. In silver robes, with silver hair that the sun clings to as if to make it a halo and present him a saint, he waits along with his parents to welcome Yuuri into their court as is expected of one monarch to another. He is handsome, Yuuri recognizes instantly, and is pleased to know that. At least he won't have to lie too much.

A they come closer, Yuuri's eyes catch the startling blue of Nikiforov's gaze and the stirring of interest within it. Just like that, Yuuri knows. Their plan will work. Now, he's sure of it.

Yuuri Katsuki carries himself with stiff dignity of someone who must sit next to his father's killer and smile at his polite remarks about the weather. Victor pities him.

It must show on his face, for every time the Katsuki king chances a look at Victor, his face closes off and he turns away from him to speak to someone else – anyone else about anything at all, even things as mundane as the weather outside the castle walls. They barely traded a few sentences since he arrived, stilted and overtly polite, but Victor's guilt has made all these exchanges far more awkward than they could've been. 

The stares Mari Katsuki has been throwing his way have helped little in ensuring a change in his behaviour. She hasn't changed much, princess Mari. Victor expected her anger, her disgust, her contempt to be directed at him, and she has not disappointed in delivering all of them. Victor can hardly blame her. He killed her father right before her eyes, after all. Still, the forcefully civil way she has been addressing him impressed him enough to get out of her hair. He could afford to show her at least that much courtesy.

With lunch over, the Katsukis disappeared into their rooms with few words of gratitude. Even lacking their presence, Victor could feel the tension that was left behind. In every set of his father's shoulders, in the uncertain glances of nobles, in the stiffness of his own neck. They brought something with them, the king and his sister: the memory that most here at court have been trying to forget, the memory of war and the scent of blood.

It was quite fortunate that his parents decided to throw a ball that evening in honour of their guests and the hopes for a new treaty their presence represented. Nothing, after all, puts more ease in people's hearts than free drink, mountains of food, and a possibility of falling asleep in a bed warmed by a less than wise affair. Victor himself would not have come to the festivities, knowing when his presence was unwelcome, if it wasn't for the intrigue he felt towards the Katsuki king. 

There was something about him… something that called to Victor. He pushed it away as simple curiosity, but the longer he watched the stone-hard profile of his enemy-now-turned-ally, as the talks between their countries turned into a peace treaty over the years, the more that inkling turned into something that would burn his fingers if he dared touch it. 

Yuuri Katsuki was someone Victor could not predict. He was an enigma, a mystery that Victor found himself wishing to solve.

And when he saw him at the ball, drinking glass after glass, while playing at niceties with nobles, Victor could not help but try. 

"Prince Victor," Yuuri greets him, sounding surprised at his approach. Why, Victor can't tell, but it makes him all the more interested in endeavouring to find out. 

"Your Majesty." Victor offers a bow. "I hope you are enjoying yourself?"

"As much as one can enjoy a setting like this, I suppose," Yuuri answers, taking a sip out of his glass. Victor's eyes follow the line of his throat before he catches himself. "If I'm to be honest, I never enjoyed balls. I'm not really a peoples person, if you follow."

Before Victor can form an answer or otherwise show his surprise, Yuuri catches the eye of his sister from afar and nods. He turns to Victor with the tiniest bow of his head.

"Excuse me, I'm needed elsewhere."

And he leaves, just like that. Victor watches him go, feeling as if he's been scorned. He can't possibly try to stop him, after all Yuuri Katsuki is a king and kings will do as kings must. It doesn't stop him from drinking his own glass of wine in a few gulps. 

Why, Victor wonders, why does his rejection feel so much different from all the others Victor experienced over the years? Mind, there was a finite number of those. Not many people dared refuse the prince of blood. Yet those who have, their sentiments have paled in comparison to Yuuri's cold indifference.

For the rest of the night Victor doesn't try to speak to him. He might just as well allow Yuuri to enjoy what little amusement he can. Despite that, Victor still watches him from the side. He lists the people Yuuri speaks to, marks those who make small smiles break out on Yuuri's handsome face. 

He looks so much warmer when he smiles. Softer, sweeter. It's a great contrast against the looks he's met Victor with, and Victor wonders what it would feel like to have him smile like this at him. It surely must be incredible, no?

Yuuri's glass is never empty throughout the ball. He drinks plenty, but somehow a new glass finds its way to his hand before the previous one is even fully empty. It is thanks to that, Victor believes, that at one point he hears Yuuri's melodious laughter spill from his lips. His cheeks flushed with wine, his eyes glowing bright in candlelight, his lips stretched in a smile that is nothing but freedom. 

Victor's heart aches as he takes him in. It is then that he decides it's enough. This entire night has done nothing but make Victor remember all the wrong things he's done in his life, and he for sure did not enjoy it. 

He turns away and slips between the guests, intending to take his leave, when... 

"Your Highness?" Yuuri's voice rings out to him as if in tune with his heartbeat. Victor turns to where it comes from and sees him there, not too far, like he has moved closer at the same time as Victor turned away. "Leaving so soon?"

Yuuri comes towards him, ease in his step that wasn't there before. He's shining underneath the light of the candelabra, his crown, his eyes, his robes – all of it. Even his skin looks as if something has breathed golden light into it and Victor blinks, but the vision that is Yuuri Katsuki does not disappear from before him. He only gets more vivid the closer he comes and when he stops right before Victor, near enough to touch, Victor feels his breathing halt at the beauty of him. 

He noticed the handsome face of the Katsuki king before, but this? This, somehow, is different. This is… more.

"I was hoping I could ask you for a dance," Yuuri says, tone disappointed as if he already believed Victor would deny him. "If you must go, however–"

"No, I," Victor rushes to say, shaking his head with all the bewildered surprise that flutters about his chest, "I would be honoured to dance with you, Your Majesty. If you think me worthy of stepping on your feet, that is."

Yuuri's lips quirk up in a smile so small that Victor would have missed it if he didn't spend the whole night watching for even the tiniest hints of it. His breathing falters when Yuuri offers him his hand. Gently, as if a sudden movement could spook him, Victor takes it in one of his. 

They step on the floor among all the other dancers who give them space out of respect and awe. Dancing, they say, is intimacy beyond marriage bed. It's an affair of minds, affair of bodies, a joining of souls. 

Victor feels it deep in his bones when their bodies come flush against each other and Yuuri's scent wraps around him as if to pull him deep into madness. He smells of pine needles and warmth, the scent of a summer forest. But he also smells of wine. From this close Victor can smell it on his breath every time he takes one and he closes his eyes. 

This, whatever it is, is only a drunken stunt of a man who should never have done what he has…

The music takes them into its arms.

"You dance well," Yuuri murmurs into Victor's neck and Victor shudders with it. 

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Victor answers, spinning them around. "You are quite a dancer yourself."

The little breath of laughter tickles the small hair on Victor's neck. "Call me Yuuri, please. It gets so tiring always being a king. I just want… I just want to be myself sometimes, you know?" 

They part as the music carries them, exchange partners with those on their sides, but Victor watches Yuuri and Yuuri looks at him as if they could never be torn away from each other. 

The words Yuuri spoke, Victor didn't expect them to ring so true against his own feelings. Maybe, he thinks as he spins his partner around, maybe there is something more to the draw he's been feeling towards the Katsuki king. Maybe, deep down, his soul has recognized a familiar spirit. Maybe, above everything worldly, they could find a way to resonate together. 

Until they come together again, neither of them breaks the charm that has befallen on them. 

"I know how you feel," Victor speaks upon Yuuri's return into his arms. "It would be my honour to make your acquaintance, Yuuri, if you wish to meet me as I am as well."

Yuuri's face splits with a smile so sudden and warm that Victor knows it will be imprinted in his mind for long weeks to come. 

"I would love that," Yuuri says.

And when Victor smiles back at him, whatever curse has been hanging over their heads, whatever bad blood has come between them in the past, it feels like with this first step onto the path of redemption everything will turn out just right. Or more than right, Victor thinks when Yuuri takes the lead in their dance and spins Victor around and around, until the world is a brilliant burst of colour – happy, radiant and free.

With fresh wind in his face and hair, it's hard to imagine that last night was actually a thing of reality and not simply a fever dream. Yuuri clicks his tongue at his horse, spurs it faster with his heels, laughing when Victor does the same to his grand white stallion. 

Last night, they danced until the light of dawn began to break over the horizon, and after, Victor walked Yuuri to his room and kissed his hand goodnight. Last night, as Yuuri allowed himself to be twirled and held, he could feel the warmth of Victor's body, his smiles, his eyes – so different from the cold he imagined. Last night, he pretended to drink and pretended to care, until Victor's guilt crackled and fell from his shoulders like the cape that Yuuri unfastened from Victor's neck with his own hands to allow them to dance longer. 

It was a night like from within a dream, even if Yuuri orchestrated it in full. But even then, Victor's reaction could not have been anything but the truth. His guilt was obvious from the moment their eyes first met, the heavy burden of having killed his father hanging between them like an axe above the neck of the condemned. With that guilt came also a caution that Yuuri needed to whittle away before he could fully implement his plan. 

So, he avoided the prince, spoke to him briefly, and then made a pretence of drinking more than he had to fool him into thinking that Yuuri has lowered his guard. And it worked. It worked splendidly. Whatever Victor's hesitations were at the start of the night, by the end of it, as they stood in front of Yuuri's chambers, Victor was loathe to leave Yuuri's side.

"I will see you tomorrow, yes?" Yuuri asked him then. "Please tell me that this wasn't just the wine clouding our minds. That… that we will not be like those others."

And Victor, foolish, foolish Victor, took Yuuri's hand and pressed it to his cheek and said: "I promise we won't. Tomorrow we will go riding, and then the day after we will take a stroll in the gardens, and a week from now we will dine together, and a week from then we will order a basket prepared and take our lunch outside the castle walls, and then a week from then, too, we will spend together, because I want nothing more than to get to know you, Yuuri."

To play it through, Yuuri has stepped up to him and caressed his cheek softly, and breathed: "I want nothing else, Victor."

When the silly prince, smitten already with a man who has nothing but his demise at heart, disappeared behind the corner, Yuuri entered his chambers and finally allowed the mask to fall. He went to bed that night cold and shivering, and slept fitfully among dreams of blood and his sister's tears. 

In the morning, however, he once again was forced to put on the same mask and smile, smile at the prince who cost his father's life. 

Unlike the night before, this time it comes easier. The muscles of his face feel lighter, the smiles more natural. It could be the effect of the distance between them shrinking faster than Yuuri anticipated, but Yuuri shrugs it onto something else: his nightmares. They steeled his resolve into a sword coined over a hundred times, sharper than any blade made with man's hands.

"You're quite a rider, aren't you, Yuuri? I could barely keep up with you!"

Victor lines his horse up to Yuuri's when he stops at the top of a hill to allow the wind to take away any lingering bitterness he might have felt. It wouldn't do to allow his mask to crack before the game has even truly begun. 

Victor's face is flushed pink from the wind, laughter brilliant in his eyes like the blue sky above their heads. His smile makes something squeeze inside Yuuri's chest. 

"Apologies," Yuuri gives with a smile of his own. "I just love the feeling of wind in my hair. It's so freeing, don't you think?"

"Oh yes, I'm quite familiar with that feeling," Victor agrees. "Sometimes life in the castle gets too much and I need a break from being a prince. When it happens I just take Makkachin and leave for a few hours."

"Makkachin?"

"My dog," Victor explains with a smile that is so full of adoration and warmth that Yuuri's breath gets stuck in his throat. The contrast between a loving dog owner and a cold-blooded killer is stark in his eyes. "Would you like to meet her? She is my most precious jewel."

"I'd like that," Yuuri answers. 

How much would it hurt Victor to lose someone he loves so much? Quite a lot, Yuuri imagines. He smiles, and keeps that information in his mind for later use. 

"But before we get back to the castle, let's go a little bit further. Just you and me, and no expectations."

Instead of simply agreeing, Victor pulls on his reins. His stallion stomps in place, impatient. The roguish grin that settles on Victor's face catches Yuuri off guard for just a second, because, truly, Victor _is_ irresistibly handsome. It's hard not to notice when every time he looks at Yuuri, Yuuri is reminded of the softness of his cheek and the delicate touch of his petal pink lips on his skin.

"I will race you to the line of those trees," Victor tells him, pointing to the forest that spans east of the hill. "And whoever wins will host that supper we agreed to."

Yuuri bites his lip when a true smile threatens to quirk them. Don't get attached, he tells himself. Victor has to die. Pretending that he doubts his skill, Yuuri looks to the forest line and back to Victor. 

At last, he nods.

"Very well. But I do quite enjoy wild duck, so make sure your cooks prepare that well," he says.

Victor's laughter catches on the wind and wraps around Yuuri warmly. "That confident you'll win?"

Yuuri tilts his chin up, a challenge in the quirk of his lips. Victor's eyes light up.

"On three then," he says. "One, two…"

The horses shoot down the hill and Yuuri can't help it: he laughs. And the way Victor's laughter sounds along his own isn't quite as awful as he expected when he first imagined it.

Victor's patience is already running thin by the time the servants set the last plate on the table in his chambers. The sitting room has been turned into a dining room for two. Two chairs, two empty plates, glasses, silver cutlery, and the rest of the space taken by food of so many kinds that Victor doesn't think they will even have the time to taste them all. But, as promised, he prepared it all in the mere hours since they arrived back at the castle: him, smitten, Yuuri – a winner. 

Truth be told, losing was more than worth it, when Victor got to see the ridiculously happy smile that brightened Yuuri's face the moment he won. He looked incredible with hair messed up by a careless hand of wind and cheeks flushed with the joy of the ride, the thrill of the race still bright in his eyes. He was much different like his than when he was drunk, but Victor found that he enjoyed both his sides: the more sombre one and this wild, brash one. They were equally as amazing and both made Victor want to be close to him.

So close he will be. 

The knocking on the door comes just as the clock strikes their agreed hour. Victor's heart gives a throb and he crosses the room in a few strides, almost jumping on the way. Before he opens the door, he stops, fixes his robes and checks the freshness of his breath. Then he smiles and pulls on the handle at last.

"You're right on time. Please, come in," he greets Yuuri, standing to the side to allow him to enter. Yuuri slips past him with a smile that matches Victor's in warmth. 

"It smells delicious in here," Yuuri praises. Victor leads him to the table and pulls out a chair for him. "Did you have the duck prepared?"

"Of course, who do you take me for?" Victor pretends offense, but his playful voice must betray him, for Yuuri only smiles.

"For a prince who has not worked a day in his life," he answers. 

Victor lifts an eyebrow. "And have you?"

The smile on Yuuri's lips is still the same as before, but something enters his eyes. Something that Victor dreaded putting there when they first met. 

"I'm sorry," he says before Yuuri can answer. "That was out of line. I shouldn't have said that."

But Yuuri shakes his head. 

"No, I'm glad you did. My life hasn't been most pleasant, Victor. I'm sure you know why." 

Victor flinches, knowing what must come after this: accusations, hatred, demands. Instead, Yuuri reaches over to take his hand. His touch is warm and soothing, and it's that that makes Victor lift his eyes to meet Yuuri's. 

"I didn't say that to hurt you. I'm sorry if I inadvertently did. It was not my intention. I just… Victor, how can we do this when something so heavy lies in our past?"

Swallowing all the years of guilt, Victor turns his hand in Yuuri's grip. Their palms slide together, warmth against warmth. It gives him all the courage to open his mouth and say what needs to be said. What he wanted to say all these years, but could not find the words.

"Yuuri, I know it's too late for this, that nothing I say will bring back your father or erase the years of pain I've caused you and your family, but I simply want you to know that his death was not planned. I never wanted this. I never meant to do it. But in battle, in the heat of things, it's hard to know a man from his lord, hard to tell an ally from an enemy." 

Victor shuts his eyes as the sounds of men dying, their screams and pleas and sobbing, fill his ears with memories that he wished to bury forever inside the well of his mind. 

"He came at me and we fought. And I… I killed him. I cannot apologize enough, but please know that I have thought of him every day since. Of your sister, too. The guilt… some days it's heavy enough that I cannot keep a breath in my lungs." He shakes his head. "I am not saying that to make you pity me or forgive me. I know I wronged you. But I hope, Lord help me, Yuuri, I hope that I can make amendments to you. If it lasts my entire life, I will swear it to you in hopes that one day I will be able to earn your forgiveness. And if that is not possible, I will still offer you my life to make up for what I took from you." 

Yuuri is silent for so long that Victor lifts his face to peer into his eyes. What he finds there is hard to describe. It's a mixture of things, violent things meshed with softness. As if Yuuri could not decide whether he should give into anger or into his growing feelings for Victor. Feelings that stir inside Victor himself in equal measure.

At last, Yuuri releases a breath that seems to take away all his anger with it, leaving only softness, compassion, and warmth on his face.

"Thank you for saying that," he says. "We cannot change the past, no matter how much it weighs on us. We can only regret that it happened and promise to ensure that the future will be better. Will you make me such promise, Victor?"

Victor vows to it on his life, life that he would gladly give to Yuuri should he want it. Yuuri shakes his head at the offer and gently touches Victor's cheek. 

"I don't want that. I want you to be yourself with me, I want you to be true like you are with no one else. That is the only thing I have ever wanted from you."

His words stay with Victor long after Yuuri leaves for the night. After, they linger by the door, after Victor offers to walk Yuuri back and Yuuri declines, only to climb to his toes and press a lingering, sweet kiss against the same cheek he's held in the palm of his hand just the other night. After, Yuuri leaves with one last look, a look of softness and warmth, that is enough to heal the old wounds on Victor's soul.

Those words Yuuri has given him so freely, Victor realizes, reflect the sentiment that no one dared to ask of him before. No one cared enough. No one wished to get to know him enough to realize that the prince he was in front of them was not the true Victor. That his heart hid behind walls thicker than he cared to admit to. 

Only Yuuri knew how it felt. Only Yuuri saw him for who he truly is. Only Yuuri cared enough to learn what was beneath the mask that everyone takes for the truth.

And by doing so, he has found the path to Victor's heart. He has found it and began to walk on it and, with time, Victor is sure he will reach the very end of it: his heart of hearts in which, Victor realizes, a flame of love has already been kindled by Yuuri's warmth. 

"How was it?" Mari asks the moment the door closes behind Yuuri. 

Yuuri smiles to himself at the memory of the soft-spoken conversation he and Victor shared over the delicious food, all bathed in the warmth of candlelight. He shakes his head to rid himself of Victor's sweet smiles when he realizes his sister is watching him closely, waiting for a reply. 

To that, he shrugs. 

"Quite nice, really," he says. "We had duck, mother's favourite. The cooks here really know what they're doing."

Mari's gaze only sharpens. "I meant the plan. How is it progressing?"

The plan… Yuuri's lips press together, all traces of his smile gone.

"It's going well. I do not expect any trouble."

"Is he showing signs he's attracted to you?" At Yuuri's nod, she adds: "How far will you go for this? You never mentioned that when we spoke of it. You don't… Yuuri, you don't plan to _marry him_, do you?"

The disgust is clear in her voice. As if marrying a prince was a thing he should be ashamed off. Maybe marrying a prince wasn't, any other prince than this one. Any other prince than Victor Nikiforov, who killed their father and will die for it by Yuuri or Mari's hand.

"Of course not," Yuuri replies without a second of hesitation. "That never crossed my mind. There would be too many questions asked, if I had. No, we will finish this before it gets to that."

"Good." Mari nods, visibly relieved. Her face still remains drawn in thought, though. "How much longer will it take?"

Yuuri shakes his head. "I can't say for sure, but at the pace we are going… not long."

She nods again before she leaves him with no further word of this. The matter is closed to her. 

But, as Yuuri sits in front of the fire in the sitting room of his chambers, he knows that for him nothing about this is simple. It was his plan, yes. And it was a good one, too. Seduce the prince into lowering his guard and slit his throat when he expects it least. Make the betrayal sting as much as it stung for them to lose their father. It would be perfect revenge.

Or so Yuuri thought in the safety of the Katsuki castle, miles away from the man himself, behind walls that have always protected him from harm. Here, now, he doesn't have that to fall back on. Here and now, Victor Nikiforov is much more than a concept. He is a man of flesh and blood, a man of beauty, with hair like spun spider silk and eyes blue like the sky, with smiles that warm Yuuri down to the core, and a voice sweet with compliments and honesty. He's a danger, a threat to their carefully laid out plans, but he's also more – he's a threat to Yuuri's heart, too.

Because, even if Yuuri knows that he killed their father, Victor he has come to know is someone that Yuuri can't help but understand. Someone whom he could see himself grow to care for. And that, that scares him. It terrifies him to the bone, because if he isn't careful, he might lose before they even set out about getting the revenge they wanted. 

He might lose and… fall in love. 

He shudders despite the warm flames crackling inside the fireplace. What a terrible fate that would be...

"You'll love it," Victor says, leading Yuuri down a cobblestone path to where gardens of waist-high privet weave in a pattern that from the windows of the castle makes a beautiful rose in bloom. The air is sweet with the scent of summer and Victor's smile is even sweeter still. "My grandmother spent her entire life labouring to make this garden perfect and she has not wasted a second of it, if I do say so myself."

"From what little I can see from the windows in my chambers, I am inclined to agree," Yuuri replies. 

They step onto the flat stones of the garden alleys. The heels of their shoes click on the now even footing, but Victor doesn't let go of Yuuri's hand. He leads him through the winding pathways, right to the centre of the rose garden, where the most beautiful bushes of these same flowers bloom in all the colours imaginable. There are reds and whites and pinks and yellows, and even blues, wherever Yuuri's head turns. 

It's truly beautiful, but not as beautiful as the smile Victor gives him when Yuuri says so.

"Thank you," Victor returns softly. "You know, if I was given a choice, I would love nothing more than to spend my days taking care of these gardens. No war, no politics, no duties. Just me and the flowers… That would be a dream come true."

He says it with so much honesty that Yuuri can't help but wonder. If Victor was allowed to do what he wanted… if he stayed home, gardening, instead of going to war all those years back… would Yuuri's father still be alive? Would they meet under different circumstances and, maybe, be allowed to truly, innocently fall in love?

Victor's eyes catch him deep in thought, curious, but not insistent. He never presses Yuuri to talk, never demands answers, even when Yuuri expects it of him. He simply meets Yuuri where he is, offers himself instead of taking pieces of Yuuri. He is not what Yuuri imagined at all. Not a selfish, haughty prince his mind made up from the snippets of rumours he's heard here and there. This Victor, the true Victor he's come to know, is someone that Yuuri cannot help but admire and wish to know better. 

It makes Yuuri want to rip his own heart out, this duality of his own feelings.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Victor asks.

Yuuri shakes his head. "They are worth a lot more than that."

"How much, then?" Victor takes the barter in stride. He cocks his head with a smile and his hair spills over his eye in a curtain of daylit moonlight. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but my family is quite well off."

"How about the cost of an entire kingdom?" Yuuri is simply playing with words, playing with Victor, too, but the truth stands behind what he says. Would Victor choose him over his duties as a prince? Would his infatuation be strong enough to cloud his better judgement? "Would you sell that for me, I wonder?"

"I am not one to enter a deal blindly, so you'll have to tell me what exactly I would be getting in return," Victor answers. They stop at the centre of the rose gardens, wrapped in the sweetness of the air there like they are in each other. Victor turns to him, considering. "A price of the entire kingdom is steep, so tell me, Yuuri, what will you offer in return?"

"Myself. Me, as I come. Me, Yuuri, and just Yuuri. But also me, the Katsuki king. An equal exchange, I believe," Yuuri says. 

Somehow caught by what Yuuri said, Victor's eyes widen. He looks at him for a moment and Yuuri repeats the words in his mind to see what might have caused such a reaction. He finds nothing. 

Or so he thinks, until Victor pulls up his hand to rest a kiss against his knuckles.

"That almost sounds like a marriage proposal," Victor says, soft in voice and expression. 

It is Yuuri's turn to pause in surprise. He never meant it as such, but he can see how his words could be taken to mean just that. He swallows, while Victor still looks at him with that untamed affection, and something in Yuuri's heart breaks. Like a levee giving in under pressure, he is overflowed with warmth so strong that he takes a step closer to Victor without full awareness of what he's doing.

"What if it was?" he asks, so hushed he isn't sure if Victor heard him. A bit louder, he asks again: "What if it was a proposal? Would you… would you accept? Me for me, me, a king. Would you accept that, Victor?"

And Victor, whose eyes glisten like two ponds of stillwater, lowers his head to touch their foreheads together in a gesture so tender that Yuuri's heart freezes with fear of what they're doing, before it begins to beat double as life, joyful and carefree, flows through his veins.

"I would accept you any way you wished to give yourself," he tells Yuuri. His breath rests on Yuuri's lips like a promise, like a vow. "You for you, you, a king. But would you accept me in return? Me as I am, me, just Victor. But also, me, a prince. Me, who one day will also be a king, your equal in title and power. Will you accept me as such?"

He changes the question, Yuuri realizes as the words shiver down his spine. It is no longer a matter of possibility. It's now a question of will, of the strength of their feelings, of Yuuri's devotion. 

Yuuri doesn't dare think of his true feelings when he parts his lips to breathe what Victor wants to hear: "I will. Any way, all of you. I accept."

"And I accept you," Victor answers.

His nose brushes against Yuuri's, his hair tickles Yuuri's cheek. But all that hardly matters. Their lips are only centimetres apart and Yuuri can feel the overwhelming urge, the need that burns inside him and will burn him down to the ashes should it not be fulfilled.

The briefest touch of Victor's lips against his own rips a gasp from his lungs. Yuuri lifts a hand to pull Victor closer and kiss him, kiss him with all the conflicted emotion Victor has ignited in his heart, but when he does, his hand meets the air.

"Hey, hey, stop that," he hears Victor's voice before he even opens the eyes he closed sometime between one hopeful breath and the other. "You're such a rascal, Makka. You know you're interrupting us over here, don't you? And you don't care as long as you get your petting, do you?"

Yuuri blinks when the morning sun reflecting from the sandy stones blinds him for a second. But then he sees them. Victor on his knees where he stood only seconds before and in his lap, trying to nuzzle into him hard enough that he sways as if he could fall back any moment now, is the most adorable poodle Yuuri has ever laid eyes on.

"Oh dear, who is this sweetheart?" Yuuri asks.

Biting back his disappointment at their interrupted kiss, because he shouldn't even feel it in the first place, Yuuri crouches right next to Victor. He offers the pup his hand to sniff, but the dog completely ignores it at the sound of his voice. The perky ears pick up and that's the only clue Yuuri gets. The poodle jumps onto him unexpectedly, and Yuuri falls onto his back with a surprised yelp. He opens his mouth to laugh while the dog wiggles in his arms, but he closes it just as fast when the big tongue begins to lap at his face. 

That is definitely not the kiss Yuuri wanted, but he would never complain about love given this freely.

He rubs the dog's silky fur, aware of Victor's efforts to pull it back. Finally, they manage it together, pushing and pulling, and Yuuri sits up just as the servants appear at the edge of the pathway, dishevelled and sweaty. They must have been walking the dog nearby and when it saw Victor, it came running to his master. 

"Are you alright?" Victor asks Yuuri, holding his dog back by the collar. His other hand he offers to Yuuri, who takes it and squeezes. It's impossible not to smile when dog drool is still drying on his face.

"I'm fine, don't worry. But I think it's about time we are properly introduced. After all, we already shared a few kisses. It's only proper we trade names." 

Victor's cheeks turn pink under his gaze and Yuuri feels his own answer with a tender flush. To distract himself, Yuuri turns to the dog and offers it his other hand. Trained to perfection, the dog rests a paw in Yuuri's palm, panting happily.

"Now you, my dear, you must be Makkachin, am I right?" The dog barks, happy to hear its name. "I've heard lots about you. Your master speaks of you so much, I couldn't believe a dog as precious as you could exist, but now I can see the error of my ways. I'm Yuuri, Makkachin, and it is a great pleasure to meet you, sweetheart. I hope we can get along well?" 

The dog barks again, happy mouth open, tongue lolling. Yuuri chuckles. She's precious, Victor wasn't exaggerating when he claimed that. 

Yuuri looks to him next and when their eyes meet, he notes the tenderness and now unhidden love shining back at him. 

He smiles, dipping his fingers into soft fur. And for once, he allows himself to keep smiling. Honestly, truly, from the bottom of his heart. 

The sun reflects in the waters of the lake as Victor stirs them with the oars. The scattering of light climbs into the boat, playing across Yuuri's robes and face. He doesn't look like a king now, Victor thinks, smitten. He looks like a god who has graced the mortal world with his presence, and him, Victor, is an unworthy peasant who sold his soul in servitude to him. A choice which he would never regret, he knows. 

So he rows, he rows while Yuuri sits back and enjoys the breeze and the sun and the sweet scent of pond lilies that flutter about the boat as they row out to the middle of the lake. Only then does Victor pull the oars in. 

The boat drifts. They're alone now, alone like Victor wished for them to be ever since that day in the gardens when he almost–

"It's really beautiful out here," Yuuri says with a sigh in his voice. "I'm glad you convinced me to come."

"I'm glad you allowed me to convince you," Victor returns. He clambers over a sitting plank to place himself directly before Yuuri. "I can't believe my father has been hogging you inside those stuffy council rooms the entire week. I nearly withered away without you. Looking at you from across the table was hardly enough."

His complaints are met with sweet laughter and Victor's heart melts into happiness so overwhelming that he doesn't know how to keep himself from kissing Yuuri then and there. Ever since they almost kissed in the gardens, he thought of nothing else when he thought of Yuuri. It was torture to see Yuuri every day at council, watch him speak and those lips move, but move so far away Victor could not help but only dream of them. He imagined his taste on his tongue, the softness of his lips on his own, the little sound of his breaths as he swallows them and brings out a moan. 

Victor licks his lips and Yuuri's beautiful brown eyes don't miss it.

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," Yuuri says, but his cheeks colour when he turns his face away. This shyness, it's precious enough that Victor wishes to hold his cheeks in his hands and press sweet, sweet kisses to them, until Yuuri knows just how much he means to him. "You are still alive, after all. You managed just fine."

"Maybe," Victor agrees. "But I still require some making up for that. For instance, I would very much like to hold your hand."

Yuuri gives him his hand, smiling. "Anything else?"

A little gust of wind ruffles Yuuri's hair and Yuuri brushes it out of his eyes with his free hand. Smiling, Victor says: "I would also like to put a flower in your hair."

"I wouldn't hate that," Yuuri answers, fond. "But where will you get a flower? We're in the middle of the la–"

Before he is finished speaking, Victor is already leaning over the side of the boat. The entire thing tilts precariously, but Victor almost reaches the closest lily. He stretches his arm further, and he shifts closer to the edge of the boat at the same time as Yuuri gives a little sound of alarm and a rushed "Victor, don't–", but it's all for naught. It's already too late. 

The boat flips over, and they go under with it.

Spitting a mouthful of water he's taken for his trouble, Victor resurfaces among the green pods of the lilies. The one he was trying to get sits mockingly in his hand. Yuuri breaks the water at his side, spluttering. He's wet from head to toe, much like Victor himself, but he doesn't seem terribly upset with him. He pushes back his hair with a hand and smiles at Victor: slightly exasperated, but warm nonetheless. 

_Gods_, Victor thinks, as he lifts the lily to tuck behind Yuuri's ear,_ I love him_.

"So, how do I look?" Yuuri asks, playful. 

"Like a drowned rat," Victor answers, already laughing even before Yuuri blinks in offence. Victor swims up closer to him, takes his cheek in hand. "But I love it. It's quite a look on you."

He strokes Yuuri's wet skin, grinning when it blossoms with a blush under his touch. Yuuri's eyes sparkle brilliantly when he lifts his chin a bit.

"Maybe you should try it sometime if you like it that much," he says. "Although, with your big forehead maybe that is not such a good idea."

Victor gasps. "Oh, the audacity…!"

The rest of his sentiment slips out of his mind soon after. Yuuri's hand pulls him in by the wet robes and his lips find Victor's. What he dreamed of doing for so many days… then, suddenly, _it's happening_. 

Yuuri kisses him and Victor answers with equal passion. One kisses become two, two turn into three, then four, and after Victor loses count. All he knows is the sweet wetness of Yuuri's mouth, the caress of his warm tongue and the taste of him: pond water and honey cakes, and _Yuuri_. 

Victor sneezes when they part, abruptly and out of nowhere, and Yuuri laughs. The carefree, warm sound carries over the water, as he hides his face in Victor's shoulder. And still, wet and unprincely as he is, Victor feels like the happiest man alive.

The lily Victor put in Yuuri's hair still sits in the vase on the little night table next to Yuuri's bed. He was loathe to part with it even when it shrivelled and dried over the following days, for every time he looked at it, the memory of Victor's kiss sprung hot in his heart. 

Even now, Yuuri brings his fingers to trace the shape of Victor's lips upon his own, soft like the petals of a lily. 

It was incredible, the kiss. They were both wet, both dripping with pond water. The teasing was a spur of the moment decision, when Victor told him how awful he looked. Yuuri never thought… He never imagined that their first kiss would be like that. He believed it would be warm and sweet, and it was, but when he planned for it, it was in front of a fireplace one night, when the servants have already left and they have been talking for hours, growing closer and closer. Victor would sit next to Yuuri, both with drinks in crystal glasses, and Yuuri would rest his hand on his thigh and turn to him with yearning in his eyes, and then, then their lips would meet. 

This kiss was nothing like that. 

It was slippery and smelled of pond water, but also of the lily that stayed in Yuuri's hair even when Victor tilted his chin up to claim his lips. It was different, but when Yuuri compared it against what he imagined, it was better than he could have hoped. It was sweet, but underneath that it was burning with passion – both Victor's and Yuuri's alike. 

It was that kiss that made Yuuri truly aware of how dangerous a game he began. Of how a single misstep on his part could prove disastrous in effect. Of how his own feelings, unwanted, yet unstoppable, have risen when Victor's lips met his.

Yuuri is falling in love.

Against everything he promised not to do, he is giving away pieces of his heart bit by bit. Mari warned him, and her worried gazes continue to follow Yuuri every time he laughs with Victor, every time their hands come together… Nothing about them should feel real. Nothing about Victor should appeal to him. But somehow, Victor Nikiforov has found a way into Yuuri's heart. He broke through the walls of hatred and anger that Yuuri guarded himself with. Something about him spoke to the deepest part of Yuuri, brought out the best in him, and Yuuri was helpless to resist it.

It might be too late, but he must fight it. He must fight against it. 

Victor will die as planned. 

Yuuri cannot allow himself to love him when the time comes or it will all be for naught. To avenge his father, Victor must die. To right the wrongs that he committed, Victor must pay with his life. To clear Yuuri's conscience and his heart, he must.

Yuuri looks at the lily on his nightstand. The withered, dying flower is a perfect reflection of how Yuuri's heart feels as he tells it to shut up and give into what needs to be done. It resists, panging in his chest, but all it does is bring Yuuri to anger. At himself, at Victor, at this silly, silly plan that now threatens to ruin not only the man it intended to, but also Yuuri in the process. 

He rips the flower out of the water and throws it into his burning fireplace. And as the fire turns it to dust, along with the memory of happiness and Victor's laughter, so does his heart. It burns, it burns, and then it stops, filling Yuuri's mouth with nothing but the taste of the ashes.

The door to Yuuri's chamber creaks open only a smidge, but even that is enough to give Victor hope. After a week of not speaking, after another where Yuuri avoided staying alone with him for even a single breath, after all this time when he looked away whenever their eyes met, this is enough to keep Victor's fragile heart from shattering.

"Yuuri," he breathes when Yuuri's gloom face appears in the doorway. "Please, I want to speak to you. It's been so long, I–" He takes a breath, aware of the crack in his voice. "If I did something wrong, if I offended you in any way, please, talk to me. I will gladly repent any wrongdoings I have committed, but please, do not shut me out without a word. Can we, can we speak for a moment? Would you please let me in?"

Yuuri opens the door further without a word. Victor slips inside before Yuuri changes his mind. It's cold in Yuuri's room, punishingly so. The fireplace looks as if it hasn't been tended to in days. Victor shudders, but the moment he takes in Yuuri's tired face, his downcast eyes, the heavy set of his shoulders, he forgets all about the coldness. In one stride he crosses the distance and opens his arms as if to tuck Yuuri against him and share his body warmth, but Yuuri stops him. His hand settles against Victor's chest, against his heart, and it feels as cold as ice.

Victor swallows thickly.

"Why?" he asks. "Why are you pushing me away?"

Yuuri shakes his head. But Victor has had enough. He spent days wondering, coming up with reasons for Yuuri's cold shoulder, yet no matter how many he listed, he couldn't know for sure. Only Yuuri could tell him the truth, and that's what Victor came here for. He needs to hear it. However awful it is.

"Yuuri, please," he begs. "I thought… I thought we shared something. A kinship that ran deeper than just our titles. Was I wrong? Was it all just a lie, Yuuri?"

Yuuri's eyes close, his lips tremble. He turns away from Victor, but he speaks to him for the first time in a week, too, which is already something that makes Victor's heart flutter.

"It wasn't a lie," he says.

"Why then?" Victor presses, now even more desperate to know. "Why are you doing this to me? To us? Yuuri, please, I– I love you."

He speaks the words like they're delicate, like anything more than a whisper could make them break apart in his mouth like glass held too tightly in an angry hand. All the desperation, all the pain, they rise up Victor's throat. It locks tight, makes swallowing a hardship, but it's the tears that are the worst. Tears of helpless anger that fill Victor's eyes and threaten to fall down his cheeks if he only blinks.

Yuuri shudders when the words reach him. He makes a sound, half sob, half breath. Whatever it is, it's full of pain – pain, just like the kind that Victor himself feels. He has to fight another urge to take Yuuri in his arms. 

Finally, Yuuri answers him: 

"We have no future, Victor. I'm sorry. I led you to believe that we could be together, that we could love each other, that we could one day get married. But we can't. You know we can't. This was all wishful thinking. I wanted to believe… No, no, that's not right. I didn't want to love you. I didn't want this. But I–" He takes a fistful of his own hair and tugs, frustrated, as if the pain could ground him. As if it could stop the tears that Victor sees now streaming down his cheeks. "This is madness, Victor, and I can no longer afford to play with my heart like this._ I can't._ And neither should you."

"If it wasn't a lie, then, Yuuri, tell me," Victor demands. "Tell me what you can't do. Say it. Say it, I dare you."

"What do you want to hear?!" Yuuri screams, turning to him and for the first time looking at him. For the first time, maybe, truly looking at him. The anger, the pain, it's all there in his tear-filled brown eyes, and Victor somehow loves him all the more for it. "You want to hear how I thought I would hate you? You want to hear how I didn't want to talk to you at all until that damned ball happened? That when we danced I couldn't help but think you were different than I imagined? That through all these weeks I couldn't help it and fell in love with the man who _murdered my father_?! Is _that_ what you want, Victor?! There, now you have it! And you can _leave_!"

Yuuri throws his arm towards the door. It's clear that he wants Victor to go, but after everything he confessed to, Victor could not possibly leave. Not when their feelings are finally out in the open, truth meeting truth.

"I love you, too," Victor repeats and answers, both at once. His voice is nothing in volume like Yuuri's screaming, but in the seething silence Yuuri falls into, it's loud of its own. "I love you, Yuuri. Isn't that enough?"

Yuuri gives a wet laugh, one that drops into a sob. He rubs a hand over his face, still angry, but also so incredibly tired. Victor's eyes blur with tears of compassion. 

"What am I to do with your love, Victor?" he asks. 

"Just have it," Victor answers, slowly stepping closer. As if walking up to a spooked animal, he makes every step as non-threatening as he can. "Have it and feel it, and allow me to nurture it. And in return, I will have you and your love, and we will love each other and support each other. Doesn't that sound good?"

But Yuuri shakes his head. 

"We have no future, Victor," he repeats himself.

"But we have the present."

"You know it doesn't work that way."

Victor says nothing to Yuuri's whisper. He is close enough to touch him and gently, so with a single hesitance left, he reaches for Yuuri's hand. Yuuri allows it, as if all the fight has gone out of him in one wild burst of anger. Now, deflated as he is, he only looks to be in pain, and Victor wishes to share that, like everything else in Yuuri's life: the good and the bad.

"I don't want to let go of you," he confesses, threading their fingers together. 

Yuuri's hand is cold, but the longer Victor holds it, the warmer it gets. On a shaky breath, Yuuri admits: "I don't want to let go of you, either."

"Then don't."

He lifts Yuuri's chin with his free hand and tenderly, gently, as if more pressure could break Yuuri into pieces of beautiful glass, Victor joins their lips together. This time, Yuuri doesn't push him away.

"During the hunt, I will tell the servants that I like to ride alone and will split from you," Mari tells Yuuri as they both bow over the hastily sketched map of the forest. 

She's been busy while Yuuri was kissing Victor behind the bushes of the gardens and in the shades of the alcoves everywhere in the castle. He kept telling himself that he was simply following the plan, but he knew he was lying to himself. Worst of all though, he was lying to his sister. The sister who still, unaware of Yuuri's changed feelings, planned to kill the murderer of their father – the man Yuuri loves. 

"You will pull the prince away from the party and then lose the servants along the way. Make sure you do that, because if they come, they will be able to see where I shoot from and my position will be compromised. Once you do all that, lead him right here." Mari points to the little clearing somewhere west of the lake, in which Yuuri and Victor shared their first kiss. "I will be lying in wait and, when you appear, I will shoot him in the back. Stay with him, try to save his life, so they don't expect you to have anything to do with this. I will return to the party before anyone notices anything." 

Yuuri's stomach churns. He feels sick, nausea rising to the back of his throat.

He should tell her. He should speak up before it's too late. He should call this off, or else the matters will get too far. 

But the hard look in Mari's eyes halts the words on Yuuri's tongue.

"Yuuri?" 

Mari looks at him, and something changes in her eyes. As if she suspects, as if she knows, as if she's trying to gauge his loyalty. Yuuri turns away from her gaze. 

And he nods, a coward that he is.

And Victor's fate is sealed. 

Every smile Victor throws Yuuri's way feels like additional weight is added to his heart, pulling him down, down, down, and he is drowning. Drowning in fear of what is to happen. 

Victor is blissfully oblivious as he talks Yuuri's ear off about the history of the hunts. Lord this and that shot down a boar all by himself once. Lady whatsoever hunted down a beautiful white pheasant, which earned her a stunning necklace from the queen's own hand in appreciation. Another lord saved the king's life by slaughtering a stag who meant to impale him on his antlers and was rewarded with a title and a castle of his own. 

The hunt, Victor says as Yuuri barely listens, is a great way to earn the crown's favour.

It is also a great way to end someone's life, Yuuri thinks bitterly. 

He flinches when a fly buzzes too close to his ear. It's nothing, but it still makes Yuuri's heart skip a beat and beat harder on. His eyes scan the lords and ladies lined behind them. He and Victor are at the front of the hunt, right beside the king. The queen refuses to take part in the wild games ever since her horse spooked and threw her off the saddle. Mari took her place as the officiant of the beginning of the hunt. She will blow a horn when it's time, and then will blow it again once the hunt is ended.

She meets Yuuri's eye and gives a stiff little nod. Yuuri nods back, even though the movement of his head feels as if an arrow has pierced his flesh. Soon, he knows, Victor will feel the same pain. And then he will never feel any more.

Yuuri looks away. 

The horn blows. The people shout, the horses stomp, and thus, the hunt begins. 

Yuuri urges his horse onward, keeping at Victor's side at all times. Or maybe it's Victor who stays at his side, it's difficult to say. Servants in plain hunting clothes follow a fair distance behind them. They carry the bows and lances and spears, ready to be used by them, but should anything happen they would not be able to protect them in time. That's what the carefully devised plan Yuuri and Mari have implemented was based on. And that's what will make it succeed.

Yuuri bites his heels into the horse's sides. The steed shoots forth and Victor matches Yuuri's quickened pace with a little laugh of joy. 

"What's this? A race?" he asks as they come to line once more. His blue eyes twinkle in the sunlight that falls in little rays and dots through the heavy forest crown. "What should we bet on it?"

"What do you want to bet on it?" Yuuri returns. He gives Victor half a smile, which he hopes comes off as playful and not desperate. 

It must, because Victor's grin only widens. "Whoever loses has to approach my father about our engagement. How about that?"

His words strike against Yuuri's heart, arrow after arrow of pain. He can't show it, though. He stuffs it into the deepest, darkest, most torn pieces of his soul, which tear into a thousand more as he realizes that what Victor hopes to happen never will.

Instead of answering his enthusiasm with words, Yuuri heels his horse and urges it faster, faster, faster… He hears Victor's white steed follow hot on his trail, but he knows that the lesser horses of the servants will not be able to keep up this pace. And that's exactly what he wants.

They speed past trees, under branches, over fallen trunks. The forest pathways are narrow and they have long since separated from the main group on the King's Road. Yuuri's breathing is loud in his ears, so is his horse's. The sound of hooves beating the ground is almost even to the hammering of his heart inside his chest. 

He turns between the trees, sets path towards the lake. Victor follows after him, only a horse's head behind. Victor's shouts of encouragement to his steed dog at Yuuri's heels. He doesn't ease, only pushes his horse harder. He never turns, never dares to look back, lest he sees the hope in Victor's eyes… hope that he will have die within mere minutes. Hope, and Victor's life with it.

At last, they shoot out from beneath the trees. A field of grass spreads before them, one that leads to the lake, which glimmers in the morning sun still far away on the horizon. 

Here, Yuuri knows. It's going to happen here.

He pulls on the reins lightly and Victor speeds past him. Only once he's done so, he reigns his own horse in. They trot together, side by side. The wind blows against their cheeks, brings forth a scent of lilies from the lake – those same lilies that were witness to the blossoming of their love. To Yuuri, now, this scent is nothing but the scent of Victor's impending death.

Yuuri doesn't hear it, but he feels the moment Mari, hidden somewhere in the trees behind their backs, lets the bowstring loose. The arrow shoots out from within the trees like a bird, quick, almost noiseless. 

And Yuuri's body moves off its own accord.

He gives a shout, but that's not enough. Not nearly enough. So he launches himself off the saddle and pushes Victor off his horse. They fall just as the arrow meant to pierce Victor's neck whistles over their heads. Yuuri cradles the back of Victor's head before they hit the ground hard enough that Yuuri's teeth rattle. He bites his tongue, too. Blood fills his mouth, but he swallows it urgently, lifting up to look at Victor's stunned face.

There is surprise in his eyes, but there is also fear.

"Are you alright?" Yuuri asks. "Are you hurt? Victor?" And when Victor says nothing at all, simply keeps looking at Yuuri, Yuuri's heart freezes. "Victor, please say something!"

"I'm alright," Victor finally says. He lifts a hand to Yuuri's cheek. "You saved me. You saved my life."

Oh, how wrong he is, Yuuri thinks. But he says nothing. He blinks away the tears that sting in the corners of his eyes. Tears of frustration, tears of fear for what is to come next.

Victor notices, he's watching Yuuri far too closely not to. 

"Shh, darling, shhh." Victor pulls his head down and kisses Yuuri sweetly. "I'm alright. And so are you. We're safe."

The sound of hooves draws in on them. The servants catching up at last, must be. Yuuri takes a breath as they both sit up in the grass. Their horses have stopped a while away, but that isn't what Yuuri's eyes fall to, no. 

It's the arrow that shoots out from the ground not even three paces in front of them. And, once he sees it, he cannot think about anything else. He cannot think of anything else other than the anger he will face when he next sees his sister.

Because that is without doubt a thing worse than death.

Yuuri's fear for his safety makes something throb harshly inside Victor's chest. It's love, he knows. Whenever he closes his eyes, he thinks of what could happen if Yuuri was too late, what could happen if things went differently, and he shudders at what he imagines. No one would know whom Victor truly loved. No one would know why the Katsuki king cries at his graveside. No one would know the strength of the feelings they shared.

It's unacceptable. 

Which is why, the moment they return from the hunt, Victor asks to speak to his father in private.

"I want to marry him," he says when they sit down in front of his father's study desk. His father is pouring them glasses of wine to celebrate their safe return. "I love him. And this marriage would be a great advantage to us. He's a king and I will be one in time, a union of equals. One of strength, which both our countries stand to benefit from."

"That much is true."

The king says only that as he twirls the wine in his cup. His face is pensive as he weighs Victor's words on the scales that his son is not aware of. In silence, still, the king comes to sit behind his desk. 

"Do you agree, then?" Victor asks, impatient with the strength of his love. 

"Have you truly thought this through or is this a decision made by your most recent brush with death?" his father asks. "I can't say I enjoy the idea of giving you away to a Katsuki. You know our history better than anyone. Can you be certain of his true feelings?"

Victor's lips form a thin line at what the king implies.

"I believe he loves me as much as I love him. He saved my life today, father. Surely that must be proof enough for you. If he wished me harm, he would only have to pretend not to notice the arrow."

"I cannot say you are wrong, my son, but I caution you to think of this again." The king shakes his head. "Once you are away from here, should anything happen, that will be immediate cause for war. We have only recovered from the last mere years ago. We cannot afford to wage another so soon."

"I understand that better than you think, father," Victor replies. "But I assure you that Yuuri is true to me. "He will not harm me in any way, and he will protect me, like he proved with his actions today. You have no cause for fear."

The king inclines his head in agreement. 

"Speak to him yourself if you don't believe my judgement," Victor finishes, rising from his chair. "But I beseech you to see the man he is, not the king that everyone else thinks him to be."

With that, he leaves, cradling his father's tentative agreement closely against his heart.

Mari comes from the shadows like an ancient fury: anger and scorn burning in her eyes. 

"You saved him."

Yuuri turns away from her, but unlike the times before, she doesn't allow it. She grabs his shoulder and with the strength that she honed through years and years of pain and hard work, she forces him to look her way. She shakes him by the shoulders. 

"You saved him!"

"I had to!" Yuuri hisses back, ripping his shoulder away. "You don't understand, Mari."

"Then help me understand," she barks back. "What reason could you possibly have to save the man who murdered our father? Tell me!"

It's enough, Yuuri thinks. Enough of the lies and of hiding, enough of fear. Today, more than anything, reminded him that cowards lose what they can't protect. And he will not lose anything more. Once was quite enough.

So he opens his mouth and says what he wanted to say for so long, truly and honestly.

"I love him."

Mari takes a step back as if he slapped her. "You _what?_"

And before Yuuri can say a word of how Victor showed him he's different from the monster they imagined, she rounds on him, red in the face with outrage.

"You _fucking what_? He _killed_ our _father_! I saw his blood on his hands. On his face, Yuuri! He's a cold-blooded killer and you're _in love with him_?! Don't make me laugh!" She walks away from him, anger in every set of her muscles. "We made a plan, a great plan. _Your_ plan." She points an accusing finger at him. "And now you're telling me that, what? You just had _a change of heart_?" She laughs, cold and hoarse. "Oh, the irony!"

"It isn't like that," Yuuri tries to explain. "He is not the man we imagined. He's kind, Mari. He told me what happened–"

"Kind?" Mari interrupts, her voice as pitchy as Yuuri has ever heard. "_Kind?!_ What is so kind about him killing our father?! Or have you forgotten all that whilst in his bed?"

Yuuri flinches. Even in her anger, Mari purses her lips. She looks as if she regrets saying that, and Yuuri knows she didn't truly mean it. She didn't say it to hurt him. She simply spoke what she thought in the heat of the moment. It's only anger, it's all anger. But even if they both know it, Mari will not apologize. She is in the right, after all.

She rears her head. "It seems like once again I was right and this plan was doomed to fail from the start. I just never imagined that it would be your fault."

Yuuri presses a hand to his heart, which throbs, throbs in pain as his sister, the only family he has left, storms out of the room without another glance back. The second the door shuts behind her with a bang, the first sob leaves Yuuri's trembling lips.

And when one does, others follow suit.

Victor passes princess Mari on his way to Yuuri's chambers. Her face is an expanse of anger and when she sees him, for a second he feels like all of that hate is directed at him. Her hand twitches at her side as if she wants to draw her sword, but in the end she simply storms past him, even more angry than before.

Victor looks after her, bewildered. What could she be so upset about? 

And then, then he knows. The righteous anger of a sibling could only mean one thing in his mind. He rushes over to Yuuri's door and bursts through without knocking. It takes him a moment to spot Yuuri, down on all fours, sobbing hard enough to choke on his shallow breaths.

"Yuuri?" Victor crosses the room and slides to his knees right next to him. "Yuuri, darling, what's wrong? What happened? Are you hurt?"

But Yuuri is crying too hard to say a word. He shakes his head and blindly reaches a hand to Victor, which Victor grabs and holds harder than needed. The worry makes Victor shiver just as Yuuri shakes with the force of his sobs. Gently, Victor pulls him to his knees, wraps his arms around him.

And Yuuri clings to him, clings to him like he never has, broken by despair.

"She hates me," he sobs. "She'll never forgive me… Victor, I'm–"

He never finishes the thought. He just sobs, sobs harder still, and all Victor can do is kiss his head, his temple, the tears from his cheeks, and whisper tender reassurings that all will be well. Victor can't know the future, but from the few words Yuuri spoke between heartbroken gasps and the sight of Mari Katsuki's face that refused to leave him, he thinks he knows what happened. 

Mari must have been against their marriage. She must have still harboured hatred for Victor over the previous Katsuki king's death, over her father's death. And now, to think that Victor would want to take her brother as well… Victor can understand that anger. What he cannot understand, nor forgive, is how awful she must have treated poor Yuuri for him to break down like this. 

But that is a matter for tomorrow. For now, Victor takes Yuuri in his arms, holds him and rocks him through the worst of it. Only when the sobs dim to sniffles and whimpers, does he dare pick Yuuri off the ground. Yuuri does not mum a word. He allows himself to be carried to his bed and pulls Victor into the sheets with him. 

Throughout the night, they never speak a word, but they do not sleep in silence. Every now and then, Victor awakens with Yuuri's sobs pressed against his skin. By the time morning light breaks over the horizon, Victor's heart is weeping just as hard. Yet, even if it is, it has also hardened into a stone. A stone that will sooner break than have his beloved spend one more night sobbing his eyes out. 

He will fix this, Victor vows to the sun that rises on a new day. He will do his best. 

Mari stops talking to him. When their eyes meet at breakfast, she pointedly turns away. Even Victor's gentle smile does nothing to soothe the ache in Yuuri's chest. She avoids him all day: turns the other way when he approaches, leaves the room when he enters, falls silent when his name is called. 

It hurts.

It hurts more than getting shot would.

And every time she does it again, it only hurts more. More and more, and more, until Yuuri locks himself in his chambers and struggles for breath from the pain of it.

It's unbearable, watching Yuuri lie in his bed, simply staring at the baldachin with sightless eyes. It's unbearable, looking for the rise and fall of his chest to tell whether he's alive. It's unbearable, that his own sister should be so cruel to him. 

On Yuuri's behest, Victor does not immediately go to speak to princess Mari. Yuuri begs him not to and Victor is too weak to tell him no. Especially when Yuuri's eyes still gleam with unshed tears at odd times and Victor finds himself lost at what to do about it. 

It's three mornings after the hunt that Victor enters Yuuri's chambers to see him quickly wiping his face, reddened with the effort of crying. And it's right then that Victor decides enough is enough. He kisses Yuuri's forehead, promises that he will make this right, and leaves to find the Katsuki princess.

She's in her rooms, a servant he spots on the way tells him, so he knocks on her door with urgent fingers.

"Come in," comes the reply.

Once Victor swings the door, her face tells him clearly that she wishes to withdraw her words. Alas, it is too late. Victor steps into the room and closes the door, facing Yuuri's sister with a cold, cold heart.

"What do you want?" princess Mari asks. She doesn't bother to hide her disgust for him. She never has.

Victor himself never thought about how that would influence the love that somehow bloomed between him and Yuuri. He never imagined that Mari's hatred for him ran so deep that she would accurse her own brother for loving him. He believed that with time they could breach their differences, that Mari would come to see him as the man he was, not just the man who killed her father. 

Yet, as Victor looks at her now, it seems as faraway a wish as another lifetime.

"I came to speak to you about your brother," Victor says. Her face turns cold as if he put a spell on her. "You treat him unfairly and it needs to end."

"How I treat my own blood is no business of yours."

"It is when I'm to be married into your family," Victor returns, equally as cold. "You're hurting him. Do you honestly want me to believe that you care about him so little that you're ready to shut him out simply because he loves whom he loves?"

"You, you mean." Princess Mari looks ready to spit at his feet, if such a thing would become a princess. "You killed our father, seduced my brother… You took them both away from me. And yet you dare come here and _lecture me_?" She lifts her chin high. "Get out before I throw you out. Of this window here, mind you."

But Victor shakes his head. 

"I understand your anger. I can't say that I understand your pain, yet I know it is fully justified. What you are doing to your brother isn't. He is your blood. You said so yourself. And it pains me, and pains him most of all, which pains me a greater deal, still, to see you at odds because of me." The princess opens her mouth to speak. Before she can, Victor rushes on. "I never meant to be the bone of discord between you. I never intended to be anything but cordially kind to both of you. And when I first saw Yuuri, I believed that it's all we'll ever be. But, trust me, I love your brother. I love him like I never loved anyone. I can promise you here and now that he will forever hold my heart, for my love is his and no one else's to claim."

"Love," Mari speaks at last, laughing in his face. "You love him! Oh, what a joy it is to hear a fool think he knows the world!" She steps up to him, face twisted in a sneer. "Your love, silly prince, is nothing more than what we made it. You love him, because we wanted you to love him. You think he loves you, because we wanted you to think it. You're here, fighting for your lover's happiness, because we wanted you so desperately in love."

Victor's heart flutters about his chest, a bird trapped in the truth of the words Mari Katsuki spits in his face. She laughs again when the understanding dawns on him. 

"Yes," she confirms. "This was all a game. All a plot to make you love him and then to hurt you where it bleeds most." She jabs a finger against his chest and Victor feels it echo right through his heart. "Yuuri has been playing you like a fiddle all along. It was all a lie and you, silly, silly prince, fell right for our trap."

"No." Victor shakes his head. "No, it can't be. He wouldn't–"

But princess Mari's face is so smug that the words die on Victor's tongue. Fear grips him as he struggles to believe. He can't. No, not Yuuri. He couldn't have done that to him. He couldn't have been so cruel. Not Yuuri… Not his sweet, precious Yuuri…

"Go ask him, if you don't believe me," Mari Katsuki tells him, content like a cat. "See what new lies he has to spare you."

Victor no longer listens. He stumbles as he runs out of the room. He sways on his feet as he makes it back to Yuuri's chambers and his hand trembles when he pushes the doors open. Yuuri is in the same spot he left him, by the window, face turned away. His eyes are filled with fresh tears when he looks to Victor, and surely this couldn't all be an act? Surely, he could not have fooled Victor like this?

"Is it true?" Victor starts with no preamble. "Your sister told me."

Yuuri's breathing stutters. It may be fear, but it might as well be tears, and Victor can't believe… he can't suspect–

"What… what did she tell you?"

"The truth," Victor answers, finding clues in the pale hue of Yuuri's cheeks, in the fear in his eyes, in the tremble of his lips, but denying it, denying it all for love. "She said… She said this was all a lie. That you... you played me? That you never loved me and this was just meant to hurt me?"

"_No_."

The single word gives Victor hope. Yuuri comes to him, rests his hands against Victor's arms. Cold, cold hands of a guilty man.

"I love you," Yuuri says. "I _love_ you, Victor. I shouldn't, but I do. That's why… That's why she's so angry with me. Because I shouldn't love you."

If only a little, it helps Victor retain the last of his composure. What Mari said, it wasn't true. She only meant to hurt Victor with her words. Yes, that must be it. 

In his heart, he knows it isn't. He takes a deep breath, asking what needs to be asked:

"What about everything else? Is it true that you meant to seduce me and then," he takes a breath again, "then hurt me?"

Yuuri bows his head. In a voice that is less than a whisper, he admits to the thing Victor feared most.

"Yes," he says. And nothing more.

"How?" Victor demands. And when Yuuri doesn't immediately answer, he rips away from him. The anger he felt towards Yuuri's sister for treating Yuuri so poorly now has reread its head against Yuuri himself. "How did you intend to hurt me?"

"The arrow," Yuuri admits at last, head hung low in shame. "It was no accident. I knew."

"_You knew_," Victor repeats. "You lead me there on purpose. You intended to–" 

And when Yuuri nods, Victor feels the truth sink it. The anger disappears, replaced by cold. A numbing cold that makes him feel like a statue of ice, like someone else has taken over his body and he simply watched them do as they wish.

"You meant to kill me," passes through his cold lips.

"In the beginning, yes," Yuuri agrees. He lifts his head, pleading with his eyes. "But I didn't want it in the end. _I love you_. I couldn't let you be hurt. It was the plan at first, but ever since I came to know you, truly came to know you, I couldn't allow that to happen. Victor, please, try to understand, I–"

"I understand perfectly, Yuuri," Victor says, oddly composed. His words are as cold as he himself feels, as numb. "You wanted to kill me. I murdered your father, you wanted revenge. So you seduced me, made me fall in love with you and lower my guard. And then you attempted to kill me."

"But I didn't, we didn't," Yuuri insists. 

He reaches his hands out to Victor, but Victor steps back. Hurt crawls onto Yuuri's face, making home there along with desperate love. How much of it is true? Victor can't help but doubt even what his eyes see. 

"I saved you," Yuuri adds as if that makes up for everything.

"Saved me, yes. But without you, I wouldn't need saving in the first place," Victor returns. 

They look at each other for a moment: Yuuri, begging him to see the love he spoke of, and Victor, unable to see past the treachery. In the end, Victor thinks as his heart slowly crumbles, one piece of ice at a time, Mari Katsuki got what she wanted. 

"Tell me one thing," Victor asks.

"Anything."

"Were you ever going to tell me about this? Or did you hope that I will never know that you intended for me to die that day?"

He asks, for he must know. But Yuuri's lack of answer is answer enough. The guilt in his eyes is enough. The sorrow around his mouth is enough. The fresh tear marks on his face, as he begins to cry again, are all enough.

"I can't do this," Victor decides. 

And, uninterrupted, he leaves Yuuri's chamber, leaves Yuuri in it, and leaves his heart locked behind that very door – weeping ice cold tears of betrayed love.

"I never thought I would see you weep like this again. Do you remember that day, a week after mother's funeral, when I found you with your shoelaces untied, because you wanted her to appear and tie them for you, and she didn't?"

She comes so quietly that Yuuri never hears a stone crunch on the garden pathway. The sun is blaring down on him, a contrast to his mood, but staying in the castle is even more unbearable. He could not cry in peace there. Here, sitting on a bench in the centre of the rose garden, where he and Victor almost shared their first kiss, Yuuri is free to weep to his heart's content. 

Yet, no matter how hard he cried, his heart was never content. Never.

"So you're speaking to me again," he says in a voice hoarse like a drunkard's. "How novel."

"Don't be sarcastic with me, we both know you don't mean it."

He says nothing to that, because she is right. He doesn't mean it.

When she steps around the bench, he shifts a bit to let her sit next to him. She does, and her shoulder brushes against his, a little comfort he didn't ask for, but which she offered as if in apology. He could scoff at it, for all the days he spent crying for her instead of Victor, but he doesn't. That would be too much strain, it would take too much strength that he already has so little left. 

So he allows their shoulders to touch and sighs, too tired for anger.

"Why did you tell him?" he asks, no accusation in his voice. Simply resignation, simply… nothing.

"I thought you would open your eyes when he casts you away," she said. "Have you?"

Yuuri's lips quirk in a sad smile. "I still love him, if that is what you're asking of me."

She sighs, half anger, half exasperation.

"Mari, I love him," Yuuri repeats, looking to her for the first time since she came to him. "I really, truly love him. And I don't think I can stop."

She measures him with her eyes, brown like his own, brown like their father's. For a moment, that comparison makes Yuuri afraid that she will once again cast him away. That her hatred for Victor will win over her love for him. 

But then she nods, and all of Yuuri's fears fade.

"Very well," she says. "Let us get to it, then."

"Get to what?"

"Giving and taking forgiveness," Mari answers as if that much is obvious.

Yuuri looks at her, unable to believe what she said. "You truly mean it?"

She only cocks her head at him, a gesture so familiar it squeezes at Yuuri's heart. He pulls her into an embrace and holds her, shaking, for tears once again spring to his eyes.

This time, however, unlike the days before, they are tears of happiness. Tears of love, relief, and restored hope that somehow maybe not all is lost yet.

The guards have been given strict orders, but somehow, on the fifth day since Victor found out the truth – and on the eighth since the attempt on his life was made – Victor arrives at his chambers to see Yuuri seated before the fireplace. His sister stands at his side as if to show their union once again. 

Victor's heart gives a pang, but otherwise stays quiet. It's been like this for days: silent, numb, frozen. 

Seeing Yuuri changed nothing.

"How did you get in?" Victor demands. 

"You should pay your guards more," princess Mari tells him. "It took far too little to buy them off."

Victor's lips draw in a line. "I will make sure to fix that as soon as you leave, then."

But Mari only snorts. She says nothing though, for Yuuri rises from his spot and Victor's eyes, unwillingly, are drawn to him like a moth to the flame. 

"Victor, please," Yuuri starts. "We are not here to argue."

"Are you here to finish what you started then?"

Yuuri looks stricken by Victor's words, ashamed, hurt. Something in Victor purrs at that, pleased to have at least that small piece of revenge. The purr, however, turns into whining and whining into a cold howl of wind through his heart, when he realizes that hurting Yuuri is not the answer. It will never be the answer.

It is Mari who speaks to him again. 

"I swore to my brother to forgo my revenge, despite my rights to enact it. He loves you, even though I cannot fathom why. By doing what I so rightfully deserve, I would be hurting him and, in turn, breeding hatred in his heart. That is not what I wish to have stand between us, the last of our blood." She gives Victor a glare that proves her feelings for him have not turned any warmer for her rejection of bloodshed. "Thus, I make this vow that for as long as you are held within my brother's affection, I shall not raise my hand against you. But, mind you, should you hurt him, should you cause him undue pain, I will beat that pretty face of yours bloody, Victor Nikiforov. So do I swear in front of both of you."

She nods to Yuuri, who offers her a small smile in return. And with no word more, she leaves them alone. Victor stares at the door that shut behind her, feeling nothing. 

"I do not know what charades you play with me now, but know this," he says as he turns back to Yuuri, "I want no part of it. Leave now and I will forget all about this and not speak a word against you for the sake of the new treaty between our lands."

"I am not playing anything," Yuuri denies, shaking his head. "I haven't been, not with you. I… Victor, from the moment we've met, I felt that you were not the man I thought you to be. You were better, kinder, more honest. Maybe that day of the banquet I got close to you for a reason, and maybe I said yes to furthering our relationship because of that, but believe me, every moment we spent together, I was true with you. Everything you know about me is real. I never lied to you about myself, never lied about anything. And I will not lie now when I say that I love you, I love you against all hope and I want to marry you as much as I had that first time we spoke of it."

Victor shakes his head, unable to believe that Yuuri could still speak of marriage at a time like this. 

"Victor," Yuuri calls, stepping closer. 

His hands are outstretched, showing his openness, his lack of threat. Yet still, Victor tenses when he comes near. Yuuri notices, of course he does, so he lowers his hand and stops. The guilt is heavy on him, the pain clear in his bloodshot, puffy eyes. He must have been crying, and harder even than when he argued with his sister. 

For the first time in days, Victor's heart thaws and weeps fat tears of ice in compassion. It's still not enough. 

"You once told me that you hope to make amendments to me for killing my father. That you will swear your life to me in hopes of earning forgiveness," Yuuri reminds and Victor remembers that he, indeed, has used those words before. That he, indeed, gave Yuuri cause to hate him. That what has been done to him was no less than what Victor has done to Yuuri before. 

Victor shuts his eyes against the truth. 

"So here I am," Yuuri continues, "now saying the same to you. I am not hoping to return to things as they once were, but I would do anything to earn your trust again. For a single chance to make this right. Please, tell me, what can I do?"

Victor swallows harshly. Inside his chest, the lump of ice that was his heart begins to melt faster and faster, leaving him shivering.

"I don't know if there is anything you can do," he finally answers.

"Nothing at all?" Yuuri insists. "Nothing to remind you of how good we were together? Of how bright your smiles were? Of how happy we both felt just being in each other's presence?" 

Yuuri comes closer, lifting a hand slowly, gently, as if afraid Victor would avoid his touch. He doesn't. He allows Yuuri to cup his cheek and from the place their skin meets, warmth spills through him. On a stuttered breath, Victor shudders. His eyelashes flutter shut, hiding away the tears that sting his eyes all of a sudden. 

"Victor," Yuuri says his name like he used to, like he is pressing his lips directly to Victor's heart, "my love, please. You cannot honestly say that all that you swore to feel for me is suddenly gone. Feelings do not disappear, they only weaken with time, and if yours have, allow me to rekindle them. Allow me to prove myself to you, to devote myself to you fully. For the rest of our lives."

Victor takes a breath. Something sits in his throat like a rock, but no matter how hard he swallows, it does not go away. 

"I will not marry you," he says, "but I cannot deny that we shared something that I have never felt with anyone else."

"Will you allow me to try and earn your forgiveness?" Yuuri asks, so hopeful that Victor's heart pangs, and then keeps panging – or no, not panging – _beating_. It hasn't for days, but now it starts once again, as if awakened with new hope.

"I will not," Victor answers, at last turning his face away from Yuuri's tender touch, from his eyes that remind him so much of the kisses and smiles they shared when everything was different, "but I cannot forbid you from it."

He doesn't forgive him, doesn't say yes to anything Yuuri asks. But his lack of firm denial is all the hope he needs to give. Yuuri takes his hand, rests a kiss against Victor's knuckles and promises to never make him doubt him again.

And he leaves, taking the ice and the cold with him, for ice only grows in the absence of love, and love once again takes its rightful home – right in Victor's heart. 

Yuuri sets about the task slowly, as if the two of them have just met, as if nothing of the past weeks has happened. 

He prepares a bouquet that every single day the gardener remakes from fresh flowers and brings to Victor's chambers: each day with a letter from Yuuri, in which he writes all the things that captured his heart. Victor's smiles, Victor's eyes, Victor's cheerful laughter… He cannot tell whether Victor likes them, but he assumes he must, for none of the flowers were thrown away. Yuuri made sure to ask the maids that cleaned Victor's chambers.

Another time, he walks down to the kitchens, rolls up his sleeves and, to the astonishment of the servants, prepares Victor's meal from scratch all by himself. He takes it up to Victor's room, and smiles when Victor praises his cooking. Bit by bit, the food disappears, yet before it is fully gone, Yuuri gently takes the knife and fork from Victor's hands and feeds him himself. Victor does not refuse him, and when Yuuri brings tender morsels against his lips, he takes them. Their eyes meet, blue against brown, and new hope blossoms in Yuuri's heart at the warmth that shines in Victor's gaze, magnified by the sweet flames of the candles.

There is still distance between them, however, no matter how hard Yuuri tries to breach it. But despite that, he persists. 

And then, one day, Victor offers him a smile. 

And another day he laughs at something Yuuri says, and Yuuri feels so full of light and gratefulness that tears glisten in his eyes. Victor sees them and he sombers up, but his concern makes Yuuri sniffle even harder. 

"No, no, this is a good thing," Yuuri tells him when Victor takes his face in his hands. Yuuri covers those hands with his own, feeling as if he will burst with happiness. "These are happy tears. I'm just so happy, Victor, so happy to hear you laugh again."

The softness of Victor's face says more of his feelings than he has put in words in days. Yuuri grabs one of his hands and kisses the back of it, putting all his love, all his devotion into it as if he could pour them into Victor's skin through his lips.

"Oh, Yuuri," Victor murmurs, soft and tender. 

He lifts Yuuri's chin. Their lips meet, salty from tears and sweet from their smiles, marking the happiness of a second beginning to the greatest story they will ever play in: their lives.

"I must leave," Yuuri tells Victor one day. It's so sudden that Victor cannot comprehend the meaning of Yuuri's words for a good second.

"Leave?" Victor repeats, surprised beyond measure. "And go where?"

"Home." Yuuri's lips are quirked in a mirthless smile. "The treaty is completed and signed, Victor. I have no more cause to stay."

He pauses as if there is more he wishes to say. And there is. There must be. Victor can't imagine that this, their whole relationship, can be summed up in those few words. 

Yuuri steps closer as if he, too, agrees that this can't be it. He takes Victor's hand in his own, winds their fingers together. 

"I must go before I overstay my welcome," he repeats. "Unless… unless, of course, you give me a reason to stay."

Instantly, Victor knows what he means. They have once sworn eternal love to each other and after everything that's happened, during the last two weeks, that love was slowly rekindled from an almost dying spark to a comfortable, warm flame that burned between them still. But what Yuuri is asking is more than that. What Yuuri is asking for is a flame hot enough to melt two bands of gold around their fingers, hot enough to join them together forever.

And Victor doesn't know if he is ready for it. So he says nothing, and Yuuri, hesitant but fair, lets go of him. It pains him to do so, it's clear to see, but he does what he thinks Victor wishes him to do.

But Victor can't. 

The entire night he spends thinking and thrashing around his bed, unable to sleep, for every time he closes his eyes he imagines Yuuri gone and his eyes snap open in fear that he did not even know he harboured. Fear of never seeing Yuuri again. Fear of never hearing his voice, seeing him smile, bringing their lips together for a breath or a laugh…

Come morning light, the decision he makes is already made for him by his silly, silly heart that he can never deny anything. 

The riders by the front gate part before him when Victor passes under the stone arch on his white stallion. They do not matter. It's who leads them that does, and _he_ turns at the sound of the gates opening again, brown eyes wide, but pleased.

"What are you doing here?" Yuuri asks, surprised and barely able to withhold hope from his face.

Victor cannot do anything but smile. It feels… It feels as if all the bitterness of the weeks past has melted out of him with the night's sweat.

"If you can't stay, I'm coming with you," he answers. "How else will you uphold the promise you made me?"

Yuuri laughs, caught.

"Of course. How else?" he repeats. He brings their horses together and reaches a gloved hand to Victor, who takes it with no hesitation. "You are always welcome at my side, Victor. Wherever I go, you will never need for anything. I promise."

And then, before Victor can say that he needs nothing as long as Yuuri is there, Yuuri speaks again:

"Thank you. For giving me this chance, for allowing me to keep proving my love. Thank you.."

And, somehow, that is enough. 

It takes a winter and a year to reconcile all their differences. But slowly, one step at a time, they do so in full, for neither cares more about silly pride than they care about each other. And once that is done, love blossoms in the world again. Birds trill with joy, flowers sprout from the ground in bountiful kemps, people smile more often than not. It's a new world, a world of spring and a world of hope.

And in that world, Yuuri leads Victor down the rows of chairs, and promises his life, his love, his eternal devotion to him forever. Smiling, oh, smiling as if to put the entire world to shame, Victor vows the same.

"I pronounce thee wed for all these witnesses to behold you against each other and God," the priest ends. "I call you now, people of this land, to see and spread the word among others that the great houses of Katsuki and Nikiforov are once again joined in friendship, love and family. Long may they reign!"

"Long may they reign!"

"Long may they reign!"

"Long may they reign!"

And together, side by side and heart by heart, that's what they do.

**Author's Note:**

> (and they lived happily ever after)
> 
> for all those of you who managed to get through all that pain -- thank you for reading!  
for ann -- I hope you liked it and, once more, I'm sorry this was SO MUCH pain when I only meant to put in a little /)n(\ thank you so much for the wonderful prompts and I hope you've had a lovely summer, just like our lovebirds ❤️
> 
> EDIT 08/20:  
the wonderful art added to this fic has been commissioned from the super talented mandolinearts, whom you can support on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mandolinearts) or [tumblr ](https://mandolinearts.tumblr.com/)  
make sure to give kathe your love if you enjoyed it!! ❤️


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